Novel thiomaleimide-based fluorescent probe with aggregation-induced emission for detecting H2S.

It has been well established that Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is involved in various pathophysiological processes. Therefore, accurate monitoring H2S levels in vitro or vivo is of great significance in biological systems. Herein, we firstly developed a thiomaleimide-based compound MAL-1 bearing aggregation-induced emission characteristic for selective response toward H2S due to its nucleophilicity. The proposed sensor presented prominent sensitivity and selectivity with low detection limit of 75 nM and pseudo-first-order reaction rate constant of 9.65 × 10-2 s-1, as well as low cytotoxicity which works well in recognizing H2S in real samples and visualizing H2S in living cells. Thus, it could be concluded that the novel thiomaleimide-based probe would be a promising tool for assessing intracellular H2S levels.